Good News, Stoners! Study Shows That Pot Doesn't Make You Stupid

Researchers have announced that pot doesn’t make you dumb – or at least, it doesn’t make you any dumber than you already are.

From a UK study, fittingly called, “Children on the 90s,” scientists tracked the health of parents, and their children who were born in 1991 and ‘92. The results from the longitudinal study (one that follows subjects over the course of their life) have shown that, statistically-speaking, smoking pot in your adolescence doesn’t have the deleterious effects on intelligence we’ve long suspected.

Sure, when you’re high you may not sound like a rocket scientist but that doesn’t mean you’re actually as dumb as you sound. Or, in the words of the lead researcher, Claire Mokrysz, from University College London:

“Our findings suggest cannabis may not have a detrimental effect on cognition, once we account for other related factors- particularly cigarette and alcohol use. This may suggest that previous research findings showing poorer cognitive performance in cannabis users may have resulted from the lifestyle, behaviour and personal history typically associated with cannabis use, rather than cannabis use itself.”

To qualify their findings, she suggested that future research investigate how the larger context of lifestyle choices affect pot-smokers and vapers, Mokrysz added:

“People often believe that using cannabis can be very damaging to intellectual ability in the long-term, but it is extremely difficult to separate the direct effects of cannabis from other potential explanations. Adolescent cannabis use often goes hand in hand with other drug use, such as alcohol and cigarette smoking, as well as other risky lifestyle choices. It’s hard to know what causes what- do kids do badly at school because they are smoking weed, or do they smoke weed because they’re doing badly? This study suggests it is not as simple as saying cannabis is the problem.”

So, game on, potheads! Don’t worry about the weed. You can still go Harold & Kumar on some of that new Bob Marley strain of weed and it won’t mean you’ll fail out of college. Also, you can tell your parents, professors and co-workers, you’re not an idiot because you’re high. If anything, you’re an idiot because you make all sorts of other bad choices. If they don’t believe you, just show them this study.